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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30111543">Palimpsest</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorado_writing/pseuds/colorado_writing'>colorado_writing</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fluff and Smut, Joyful</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 00:33:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,556</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30111543</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorado_writing/pseuds/colorado_writing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Weasley Family finds joy after heartbreak, and Ron and Hermione take a step forward.</p><p> </p><p>There isn't an explicit coercion, but there is a mention of past sexual coercion from a previous relationship.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Palimpsest</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ron is on the tips of his toes, waiting. Bouncing on the balls of his feet, he keeps bumping his head on the rafters of the Burrow; but he can’t be stopped. Harry and George took the mick out of him, mercilessly, until finally Arthur put him to work enchanting the dining room set to move outside, just to get his excited face and erratic limbs out of the kitchen.</p><p>Hermione’s getting dressed up. Ron has never had a better Saturday.</p><p>In the sprawling lawn behind the Burrow, lights and streamers float across freshly mown grass. It’s the last evening before Ginny and Hermione travel back to Hogwarts for their final year. Ginny’s been aggressive about creating moments of light and joy for her family throughout the summer—picnics, shopping trips, book clubs, anything at all to lift her mother’s expression and lighten Harry’s eyes—and for this night that all of them had been dreading, for one reason or another, she had demanded a party.</p><p>“I want cake! And streamers. Mum, don’t look put upon, there are decorations hidden in the attic somewhere, I know it… We’ll have to make a list, we’re almost out of veg…”</p><p>And for her daughter, Molly Weasley had come through. The Burrow had been full of the sounds and smells of cooking since eight that morning, when Fleur had burst in on breakfast with arms full of farmer’s market treasures from the day before, closely followed by an apologetic Bill. Fleur and Molly had become inseparable since the Battle of Hogwarts and had stood next to each other at the stove all day, cooking in unison and singing along with the radio. Everyone had found some reason to stay in the kitchen that morning. Hermione read, Ron polished silver, and Harry just sat. Mrs. Weasley’s laugh was medicine to them all.</p><p>Now the lawn is filling with people chatting under the starry summer night sky—Neville, Luna, Kingsley, Percy and the surprise girlfriend he had apparently been secretly dating for years. Penny was in the Department of Magical Creatures, and everything he isn’t—spontaneous, loud, exuberant in her affection. Penny and Percy make two halves of a whole.</p><p>“Oy, stop it, you’re a right creep.”</p><p>Ron startles, looking to Harry, who’s just joined him outside. “What?” he demands.</p><p>Harry rolls his eyes. “Looking at her window isn’t going to make her get dressed faster, Ron. Girls take a long time.”</p><p>“So you say with your enormous wealth of experience, right?”</p><p>Harry smirks and shoves his friend in the arm, turning toward the party to flag down Charlie for a Quidditch chat. “Go help your mum.”</p><p>Ron grins after him and strolls back toward the Burrow, drinking in summer air. There’s a heaviness in him that might never leave—not that he necessarily wants it to. After the trauma that he’s experienced, it feels somehow right that he would be irrevocably changed. But he’s learning to find lightness, to breathe because he can, and not because he has to. Because he’s still here in a world that is terrifying, tragic, and terrible, but beautiful.</p><p>Beautiful. She’s beautiful. Standing with Ginny in the kitchen, smiling as Mrs. Weasley fills her arms with bouquets of herbs and flowers to bring outside. Ron comes to a hard stop with his hands on the doorframe, staring. As his long body blocks the sun she turned, her grin spreading across her face like a sunrise. Ginny exchanges a glance with her mother, both of the corners of their eyes crinkling in the same way, and the two Weasley women bustle out of the Burrow, arms full of silverware.</p><p>Hermione stands in front of him with her arms full of daisies. She knows he’ll say something eventually; she’s dealt with Bludger-struck Ron before. Today, Hermione spent longer than she was proud of on her appearance—her hair is carefully braided and twisted into a topknot that is already threatening to come loose, and her eyes sparkle with make-up. Molly had taken her shopping about a month earlier, saying that new clothes can mean a new start, and now she was wearing a yellow wrap dress printed with blue and white flowers, as well as her favorite gray cardigan.</p><p>Hermione is a little nervous. A lot nervous, if she’s entirely honest, to leave the Burrow, to go back to a school of prying eyes and serious questions from other children who had grown up entirely too quickly. And a little nervous to be standing in front of a boy she likes very much in a brand-new dress.</p><p>Ron walks quietly into the kitchen with a grin that warms Hermione to the tips of her toes. He gently takes the flowers out of her arms, dropping a few, and when Hermione makes a tsk noise and stoops to pick them up, he catches her face and kisses her.</p><p>For a few sweet moments there is nothing to focus on but each other. It took Ron three months after they moved home to kiss Hermione again, after their first kiss in the dungeons. She had been furious, but she had understood. Because she was Hermione.</p><p>
  <em>“What is going on, Ron? What did I do?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>They’re walking through the apple trees on the Burrow’s back lot, picking the first of the season. Hermione has suddenly stopped short and started firing questions at him, emotions flickering across her face so quickly he can barely catch them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It’s been months, and—and I don’t want to push you, I know things are hard, I mean they are so hard, but I—I kissed you. You know. I thought I would let you talk to me next, since I, ah, made the first move, I think you could call it, but I—is it me? Was I wrong? I—"</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You’re never wrong, Hermione.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She stares at him for a beat. “Okay. So…”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’m sorry. I’ve been a coward. I…” Ron runs his hands through his hair, looks at the clear b;ue sky above. Takes a deep, settling breath, and looks back to her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“We lost a lot, didn’t we? Time, people, friends.” (he swallows) “Family.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I lost a lot of… myself too.” He is looking at her intently. She’s dropped her arms and is waiting with a kind expression in her eyes, giving his vulnerability space.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“If I lost you, Hermione, I don’t think there would be anything left.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He can hear her breath catch, then, and she brings one hand to her mouth.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ron takes another breath, and then a step closer to her. They are just three feet apart now, and his red hair is glowing, lit by a late afternoon sun.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I’ve been really shit-brained about this. I’m sorry, ‘Mione.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hermione laughs once, and it gives him a little bit of reassurance. He grins, and then sobers immediately as he tries to work out what he needs to say. Ron makes a point to meet her eyes, licks his lips once, and starts.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You weren’t wrong, Hermione. I’ve wanted to kiss you since I’ve wanted to kiss anyone! But I’ve been in a bad place, and I couldn’t ask you what I needed to ask.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If you kissed me because there was a battle and you needed a—a release, or something, that’s okay. I promise it is okay, it really is. Anything is okay as long as you are my friend, at the end of the day, but if that’s what it was, a one-time thing or just… kissing because… snogging is nice, or whatever, I can’t do that. Because I love you, and not like anyone else, you know, I’m *in* love with you, and I can’t just be… I can’t… I. I’ll be your best friend, whatever you choose. Whatever you want. But that’s what it is for me.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hermione is trembling a bit, holding her hands next to her heart. She’s silent for a moment and Ron is anxious enough to start babbling, apologizing, until—</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I am very much in love with you, Ron.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ron stares at her, open-mouthed. The few freckles on her nose are lit up by the fading light; stray tendrils of her hair are gleaming gold.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He barely dares to whisper. “Really?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She nods, smiling, with shining eyes, and in one step he’s holding her tight and kissing her sweet mouth, trying to tell her a million times, “I love you, I love you, I love you” while keeping his lips pressed to hers. Ron can feel her smile against his mouth and then suddenly he bursts into laughter, and Hermione looks shocked, hurt, until he swings her around and asks, “How could the brightest witch of our age fall for ME?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hermione laughs back at him, sweet music to his ears, and then throws her arms around his neck to kiss him again. She holds his tall frame tight to hers, and they return to the Burrow much later, having completely forgotten to pick any apples.</em>
</p><p>Since that moment two weeks ago, they’d had a few moments to themselves—Ron likes to revisit a particularly memorable thirty seconds during which Hermione had pressed him against the wall next to the bathroom, kissed his Adam’s apple, and walked away, all in her fluffy pink robe—but nothing longer than an hour.</p><p>“Ahem.” George’s voice comes from the doorway, and Ron and Hermione break apart, Ron’s ears a fire hydrant red. George has the decency to look embarrassed, but Hermione knows he’s secretly pleased. Seeing Ron happy is more important than politeness.</p><p>George rolls his eyes and turns around, calling, “It’s time for dinner, lovebirds!”</p><p>Ron grins and swoops down to kiss Hermione on the cheek before gathering the flowers they had scattered across the floor. As he steps away, towards the party, Hermione stops him with a tug on his sleeve. She meets his gaze with a determined look he hasn’t seen before and softly says, “Ron. Don’t lock your door tonight,” before dashing out the door.</p><p>Ron decided that, under the circumstances, he was allowed a moment of recovery before greeting his friends and family.</p><p>The Weasley family and their friends eat, drink, laugh, and dance until close to midnight. When Fleur declines a glass of champagne for the third time, Molly grabs Bill’s arm, and Bill shyly clinks his glass to announce that Fleur is pregnant. As Arthur cries over the promise of his first grandbaby, Hermione sits quietly, basking in the love of her chosen family. She still feels broken, cracked, and raw. She knows that there are edges of her that won’t ever smooth over again. But sitting here, watching Percy stammer through a speech about “fertile beginnings,” to George’s guffawing—she thinks that maybe the broken pieces won’t always pierce her. At some point, they’ll be a part of her that doesn’t hurt.</p><p>As the clock nears midnight Ron steps away from the party. Harry, Ginny, and Neville headed to bed an hour ago; the rest of the group is invested in a fierce wizard chess match between Kingsely and Luna. Hermione watches Ron’s long frame walk toward the house and then follows, wiping sweaty palms on her dress. She stops for a glass of water and a moment to herself in the kitchen. She hopes desperately that Ron wants what she wants—that she isn’t wrong. Hermione’s mouth twitches—he had said, two weeks ago, that she was never wrong.<br/>Even with her warning, Ron is surprised when Hermione knocks on his door. He’s still surprised every time she gives him a kiss, a warm look, or a moment of her time, after he left them in the forest of Dean. Always the tone of surprise.</p><p>Ron opens the door to see Hermione, still dressed up from the party, standing in the half light of the hallway. He inhales sharply at the image of her silhouetted in the dim light, her brown eyes turned up to meet his. Waiting.</p><p>Ron shoves his hands in his pockets and sits down on his bed, moving so quickly he almost trips himself on the bedframe. He desperately doesn’t want to push her. The fact that Hermione Granger loves him seems too miraculous to be solid. Something this fantastical must be fragile.</p><p>Hermione shuts the door softly behind her and walks toward him, gentle footsteps on the old hardwood floors. Sitting down, Ron is almost head-height with her. He forgets sometimes how tiny she is; she seems larger than life. Larger than his life, certainly.</p><p>And right now, she’s a million contradictions to him. Larger than life, and physically tiny. Confident, sure-footed—and nervous, nibbling at her bottom lip. Everything in his world, but fitting right between his knees, right between his arms.</p><p>Hermione takes a deep breath and slips off her cardigan. The buttons make a small plink on the floor, and when Ron looks back up from where the sweater has fallen, Hermione has untied the sash holding her dress together. She looks him in the eyes and lets it fall. Swoosh.</p><p>Ron feels light-headed. He abruptly becomes aware that he hasn’t taken a breath for several seconds. Hermione has on a matching set of white lace, with tiny bows—incredibly tiny, maybe the size of the tip of his finger—stuck in tantalizing places. She’s still standing between his knees—so close, but not touching. In a few more movements her hair is down around her back and she looks at him. Done.</p><p>She can’t read his face and it makes her a little more anxious than she’d realized.</p><p>“Is this—is this okay?”</p><p>Now he is easy to read: incredulous.</p><p>“Okay? You’re joking, it’s amazing, I’m so—thank you, Hermione—”</p><p>Hermione grins, rolling her eyes, and moves forward to straddle Ron’s lap. He immediately puts his arms around her back to hold her close, stroking her hair. She’s still shocked at how gentle he is, how ready he is to just hold her. How he never asks, but receives so well.</p><p>Their kisses become passionate quickly. When she’s undoing his shirt buttons Ron pauses to scrabble for his wand, and then breathes against her neck, “Muffliato. Colloportus.”<br/>Realizing Ron has silenced and locked the room makes Hermione want him that much more. She slides off his shirt as he kisses her neck, runs his teeth down her collarbone, bites her bra strap and lets it go. Snap.</p><p>They’re both breathing heavily, staring into each other’s eyes. Ron’s hands are tangled in Hermione’s hair; he doesn’t think he’ll ever need them back. Hermione has one hand on the small of his back and one on his chest, the tops of her breasts moving in and out of her bra as she pants. Ron notices the movement and groans, collapsing his forehead to her chest.</p><p>Hermione kisses the top of his head and then sinks down to sit on the floor. Ron’s eyes widen as she carefully moves her hands to his belt buckle. She takes a breath, smiles, and asks,</p><p>“Can I?”</p><p>“I think it’s supposed to be ‘may I,’” Ron responds, to his own instant mortification.</p><p>Hermione stares at him. She’s here, kneeling between his knees, in lingerie, and he—</p><p>“You’ve been on me for grammar, I’ve been thinking about it a lot, oh my god I’m sorry, yes, it is okay, anything you want is okay.” Ron swallows, tries to smile through his deep embarrassment and flaming face. How could he. How could he mess this up!</p><p>Hermione chuckles and turns her attention to his jeans. “I’m glad you’ve been listening Ron, really, I’m just not sure it’s the time for grammar lessons…”</p><p>“Hermione Granger, did you just say it isn’t time for grammar? Am I that—oh, Hermione—”</p><p>Hermione has undone his jeans and she’s looking up at him, waiting for his rambling to end. Ron swallows and nods at her. Very slowly, she slips her hand into his boxers and deftly, politely somehow, lowers her mouth to him.</p><p>Ron doesn’t know or care how she became skilled at this; maybe it’s just that it’s Hermione, his beautiful girl, and he’s stroking her perfect unruly hair and she’s moaning too, but within a minute he’s shaking. He rips his hips away from her, scrabbling for his T-shirt and barely grasping it in time to come.</p><p>“Did I do it wrong? I—”</p><p>“No! No, Hermione, nothing about that was wrong.” Ron laughs, wiping himself off with his T-shirt and turning back to Hermione and reaching to hold her hand. “We just didn’t talk about what you wanted me to do. If you wanted to…um… swallow it, or not. I wouldn’t want to make you have a—a mouthful of something you didn’t want.”</p><p>Hermione shakes her head, smiling. God above, she loves this man. Goodness comes so naturally to him.</p><p>Ron pulls her up and they collapse into each other, kissing and laughing, and then somehow her beautiful lace bra has come off and he’s speechless, breathless, thanking every diety he can name. Hermione can’t believe, still, how he knows her, how to hold her and touch her and bite her so that she in one moment he’s slipped a hand between her thighs and in the next she is groaning and shaking.</p><p>He watches her face as she comes, twice—first from his long fingers, his strong Keeper’s hands, and then from his sweet, exploring tongue. Ron’s face shows nothing but awe. After she pulls him back from between her legs, exhausted and undone, he just watches her in the moonlight of his open window.</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>Hermione looks up at him, twisted in his flannel sheets and completely at ease. Her fears and insecurities and hard edges don’t have a place here, in this bed. Ron has pushed them out with kisses and kindness and consent.</p><p>“I love you too, Ron.”</p><p>Hermione pulls his face down to hers and kisses him deeply. She feels that he’s hard against her leg and though he immediately pulls away, not wanting to make her uncomfortable, she wraps a leg around him. Pulls his hips down to meet hers.</p><p>After another long kiss, Ron props himself on his elbows and looks at her. Brushes some hair out of her face. “What do you want now, Hermione?” he whispers.</p><p>“You, Ron.”</p><p>He nods, swallows. He knows what she means.</p><p>Ron shrugs out of his boxers, and they’re both starkers then. He gently pushes her leg off of his hip. Open. Hermione’s breath catches as he dips his hand between her legs, warming her up, bringing her back to the edge. When she can’t speak, she brings his hands up to her hips and kisses him once, twice.</p><p>“Hermione, I’ve heard this might hurt.”</p><p>She bites her lip, shakes her head. “No. It won’t.”</p><p>Ron stares at her, his mind working frantically, before he lands on her meaning.</p><p>“Oh. I mean—Krum, then? Sorry—you don’t have to answer that. I—”</p><p>“Ron—I’m sorry. I—I meant it to be you, but…”</p><p>Hermione rolls over a bit, and Ron moves back, to give her space. He can’t know that the new six inches between them hurts like a cliff edge. She swallows tears and goes on.</p><p>“You…you were really mad at me, that week. That year. I didn’t think it would ever happen between us. Krum really wanted to, and it felt nice to feel wanted, and… he gave me wine. I was new to drinking. All of us were, but he wasn’t. I didn’t really want to, but I also wanted to be wanted, and it happened before I realized it, and I—I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t you dare apologize for that.”</p><p>Ron’s face is fierce. His eyes are dangerous, and Hermione holds her breath.</p><p>“I’m sorry. I should have been there for you. Fuck, Hermione, I am so sorry. Krum is… he’s a fucking piece of shit. That’s what it is. Your first time should have been perfect. It should have been what you wanted. I—I’m so sorry, love. I am so sorry. Oh—oh Hermione, don’t cry—”</p><p>Ron’s voice catches and he brushes the tears off her cheeks with his thumbs.</p><p>“Ron,” she chokes, through a new batch of tears, “Do you know what a palimpsest is?”</p><p>Ron smiles, thankful to hear a familiar note of academic interest in her voice.</p><p>“School, Hermione? Now?”</p><p>She giggles and rolls onto her elbow to look at him.</p><p>“A palimpsest is a work that is written or painted onto another text or work of art. It’s like… Russian nesting dolls, sort of, except for that it writes or paints over the first creation.”</p><p>Ron nods, slowly. “Okay. Sounds like Parseltongue, though.”</p><p>Hermione smiles. “It’s a muggle word, but… yeah. Sort of.”</p><p>She looks up at him, heart full of hope. “Krum shouldn’t have done what he did. It wasn’t what I deserved.”</p><p>Hermione twines her fingers through his, staring into his beautiful brown eyes. “But you can be my palimpsest, Ron. If you still want me. You can be my second first time.”</p><p>Ron strokes the side of her face with his thumb, slowly, lovingly. “I’m going to want you for the rest of my life, Hermione. I’ll be anything you want me to be.”</p>
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